Monday, August 15, 2016

A 600-mile, northbound, pre-migratory destination for a South Florida Swallow-tailed Kite

Tracking data from "Panther," a Swallow-tailed Kite tagged at the Florida Panther National Wildlife Refuge in June 2016. Yellow star indicates tagging location.

Adult Swallow-tailed Kite Panther was tagged on the Florida Panther National Wildlife Refuge (FPNWR)
on 8 June 2016. Although this bird’s sex
is unknown, we believe it is a male based on its size. ARCI is grateful to the US Fish and Wildlife
Service staff at FPNWR in southwestern Florida for their interest in our
long-term Swallow-tailed Kite telemetry study, and for helping us increase our
sample of tracked kites with a bird from the Big Cypress Swamp. We also thank The
Friends of FPNWR, who provided much-needed monetary support for the transmitter,
data acquisition, and tagging effort.

Mark Danaher of Florida Panther National Wildlife Refuge with Gina Kent of Avian Research and Conservation Institute as she places a hood on a Swallow-tailed Kite to calm the birdprior to radio-tagging. Photo by Kevin Godsea, USFWS

Panther remained on FPNWR for just five days after being
tagged (due to unmanageable delays, we began trapping at the very end of the
capture season). He then flew north from his summer nesting area, foraging over
agricultural fields near Ocala, Florida, for a week before continuing northward
up the Atlantic coastal plain of eastern Georgia and South Carolina until reaching
the Pee Dee River in eastern South Carolina.

Panther spent his pre-migratory preparation time ranging
throughout the Pee Dee and Little Pee Dee drainages, as far north as
southernmost North Carolina, at least 660 miles from his FPNWR nest territory! Swallow-tailed Kites often make these long-distance
moves after nesting and prior to southbound migration, probably to find good
foraging areas to fatten up on insects, but also to explore the larger U. S.
range of their species while they can, learning where other kites nest, feed,
and roost together as they get ready for their long journey to South America.

After 17 days over the beautiful coastal lowlands of South
Carolina, Panther began flying south. Along the way, he spent his nights roosting
in the swampy flood-plain forests of the region’s major rivers, including the
Savannah, Altamaha, and St. Mary’s. He also hunted some of Florida’s most
beautiful and biologically-diverse conservation lands - Pinhook Swamp, San
Felasco Hammock, Green Swamp, Corkscrew Swamp, Picayune Strand, Fakahatchee
Strand, and Ten Thousand Islands.

Panther left Florida on 22 July, crossing the shoreline just
east of Marco Island. Flying nonstop (how else?) across 490 miles of open ocean
– 490 miles! - he reached the northeastern tip of the Yucatan Peninsula on the
evening of 23 July, a flight as speedy and true as it was perilous. After resting
and feeding in the area for a week, he took up a southerly heading, moving
steadily through the Mexican state of Quintana Roo, Belize, and Honduras before
reaching the Caribbean shore of eastern Nicaragua. In the 56 days since he left
his family’s nest site, Panther traversed a total of at least 2,600 miles
(measured in a succession of straight-line segments). Half of these miles were
devoted to his round-trip excursion to southern North Carolina, before he
finally began his actual southbound migration from his Big Cypress breeding
territory.

Other tracked kites are following Panther’s lead. We love
sharing their stories with you, and hope you enjoy knowing that your support is
what makes this research possible.

The Swallow-tailed Kite blog is sponsored by:

Avian Research and Conservation Institute

Once seen along the Mississippi River as far north as Minnesota, the Swallow-tailed Kite's range is now just a third its historic size. In the last 40 years, up to 80% of formerly common bird species have declined.

ARCI works to develop management techniques for these at-risk birds, but we must apply them now, before their recovery becomes impossible.

Since 1996, we have used satellite telemetry to study the ecology of Swallow-tailed Kites, including the 10,000 mile migration they make each year to the humid plains of Brazil and back to the lowlands of the southeast U.S.

Avian Research and Conservation Institute (ARCI) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that has gained attention and respect for difficult, problem-solving research on rare and imperiled birds.